SAS drives analytics into the cloud with Amazon Web Services

SAS uses Amazon Web Services to provide enterprise-level analytics

Cary, NC
(12 aug 2014)

SAS is using Amazon Web Services (AWS) to help organizations improve business functions by creating flexible, scalable, analytics-driven cloud applications. This marks a critical step forward in helping organizations execute their big data and Hadoop initiatives by applying advanced analytic capabilities in the cloud with products such as SAS® Visual Analytics. The success of this collaboration is already being realized by customers using SAS® Data Management, SAS Business Intelligence and SAS Analytics products on AWS.

“Being able to run SAS on Amazon’s Cloud infrastructure allows us to ‘democratize’ analytics throughout our global operations,” said Anthony Volpe, Lenovo Executive Director and Chief Corporate Analytics Officer. “Not only do we reduce the costs associated with our own technology environment, but our customers also benefit because we can make critical decisions much faster by being able to analyze data from anywhere at any time. SAS in the cloud allows us to incorporate relevant changes into our business processes quickly and effectively, across our worldwide organizations.”

As the leader in business analytics software and services, SAS has continually looked for ways to help organizations stay on top of market changes and meet customer demands. “Cloud-based technologies allow businesses to do more with less at a time when being agile and effective is more critical than ever,” said Scott Van Valkenburgh, SAS Senior Director of Global Alliances. “SAS has been working with AWS to bring SAS Analytics into the AWS Cloud to help address the need for speed and flexibility in analyzing large amounts of data quickly and for taking new analytic approaches. Lenovo is an excellent example of how a company can run cutting edge solutions like SAS Visual Analytics on AWS to help increase efficiencies across its global operations.”

“Factors driving businesses toward the cloud include faster access to new functionality, reducing capital IT costs and improving the use of existing resources,” said Dan Vesset, Vice President of Business Analytics and Big Data Research at IDC. “These are all critical factors to maximizing the value of analytics, which can take the accuracy and timeliness of a company’s decision-making capabilities to the next level. Deploying analytics within the cloud gives a business the ability to use more than just existing in-house systems to manage and analyze their data.”

SAS offerings work with the following AWS services:

Amazon Redshift: A fully managed, easily scalable and secure cloud-based data warehouse service that works with SAS to help customers quickly engage in big data analysis.

Amazon Elastic MapReduce: Amazon EMR uses Hadoop to distribute and process data across a scalable cloud infrastructure. This makes it easier for SAS users to focus on their data analysis rather than on the provisioning and administration of their SAS and Hadoop environments. Doing so ultimately leads to greater flexibility in how and when they analyze their data.

“The cloud is a great equalizer for all organizations, no matter how big or small” said Brian Matsubara, Head of Global Technology Alliances at Amazon Web Services. “SAS on AWS provides our mutual customers flexible options when it comes to leveraging big data with innovative services like Amazon EMR and Amazon Redshift. Customers are now able to leverage analytics solutions they value from SAS, combined with the power and scale of the cloud, ultimately contributing to their ability to build their businesses.”

As SAS continues to work with its Alliance members to deliver new and innovative programs to use SAS in the cloud, SAS is forming a Cloud Innovation Council with Intel as a founding member. Kicking off later this year, the Council will formalize a community around best practices and trends to help customers take full advantage of SAS in the cloud. Members will include global system integrators, ISVs and regionally based consultants. Capgemini, Cloudera, CoreCompete, Hortonworks, Pinnacle Solutions and Selerity have already joined the Council.